Chapter 8

WHEN the
steamer at Imyn had embarked the
three sportsmen, and the little pier was quiet, we
got a cart out for the Rob Roy, and bargained to
have it rumbled over the hill to the Lake of
Lucerne for the sum of five francs--it is only half
an hour's walk. The landlord himself came as
driver, for he was fully interested about the canoe,
and he did not omit to let people know his
sentiments on the subject all along the way, but called
out even to the men plucking fruit in the
apple-trees, who had perhaps failed to notice the
wonderful phenomenon which was passing on the road
beneath. There was a permanent joke on such
occasions, and, oddly enough, it was used by the
drivers in Germany as well as in Switzerland, and
was of course original and spontaneous with each
of them as they called out, "Going to America!"
and then they chuckled at the brilliant remark.

The village
we came to on Lucerne was the
well-known Kussnacht, that is, one of the
well-known Kussnachts, for there are plenty of these
honeymoon towns in Central Europe. In the
midst of the customary assembly of quidnuncs,
eloquently addressed this time by the
landlord-driver, the canoe was launched on another lake,
perhaps the prettiest lake in the world.

Like other
people, and at other times, I had
traversed this beautiful water of the Four Cantons,
but those only who have seen it well by steamer
and by walking, so as to know how it juts in and
winds round in intricate geography, can imagine
how much better you may follow and grasp its
beauties by searching them out with a canoe.

For thus
I could penetrate all the wooded
nooks, and dwell on each view-point, and visit the
rocky islets, and wait long, longer--as long as I
pleased before some lofty berg, while the
ground-swell gently undulated, and the passing cloud
shaded the hill with grey, and the red flag of a
steamer fluttered in a distant sunbeam, and the
plash of a barge's oar broke on the boatman's
song; everything around changing just a little,
and the stream of inward thought and admiration
changing too as it flowed, but all the time,
whenever the eye came hack to it again, there was
always the grand mountain still the same,

"Like Teneriffe or Atlas unremoved."

How cool
the snow looked up there aloft even in
the heat of the summer! and,--to come again to
one's level on the water,--how lively the steamer
was with the music of its band and the quick
beat of its wheels curling up white foam. Let us
speed to meet it and to get a tossing in the swell,
while Jones and Smith, under the awning, cry out,
"Why, to be sure, that's the Rob Roy canoe,"
and Mrs. Jones and the three Miss Smiths all lift
tip their heads from their "Murrays," where they
have been diligently reading the history of
Switzerland from A. D. 1682, and then the description
in words of all the scenery around, although they
have suffered its speaking realities in mountain,
wood, and lake to pass before their very eyes
unnoticed.

As I
was quite fresh in good "training" now,
so as to get on very comfortably with ten or twelve
hours' rowing in a day, I spent it all in seeing
this inexhaustible Lake of Lucerne, and yet felt
that at least a dozen new pictures had been left
unseen in this rich and lavish volume of the book
of nature. But as that book had no page in it
about quarters for the night, it was time at last
to consider these homely affairs, and to look out
for an hotel; not one of the big barracks for
Englishmen spoken of before, but some quiet place
where one could stop for Sunday. Coming
suddenly then round a shady point, behold the very
place! But can it be an hotel? Yes, there is the
name, "Seeburg." Is it quiet? Observe the
shady walks. Bathing? Why, there is a bath in
the lake at the end of the garden. Fishing? At
least four rods are stretched over the reeds by
hopeful hands, and with earnest looks behind,
watching breathless for the faintest nibble.

Let us
run boldly in. Ten minutes, and the
boat is safely in a shed, and its captain well
housed in an excellent room; and, having ordered
dinner, it was delicious to jump into the lake for
a swim, all hot with the hot day's work, and to
stretch away out to the deep, and circle round and
round in these limpid waters, with a nice little
bath-room to come back to, and fresh dry clothes
to put on In the evening we had very pretty
English music, a family party improvised in an
hour, and broken up for a moonlight walk, while,
all this time (one fancied), in the big hotel of the
town the guests were in stiff coteries, or each set
had retired to its sitting-room, and lamented how
unsociable everybody had become.

I never
was more comfortable than here, with
a few English families "en pension," luxuriating
for the sum of six francs per day, and an old
Russian General, most warlike and courteous, who
would chat with you by the hour on the seat under
the shady chestnut, and smiled at the four
persevering fishermen whose bag consisted, I believe,
of three nibbles, one of them allowed on all hands
to have been bonâ fide.

Then on
Sunday we went to Lucerne, to church,
where a large congregation listened to a very good
sermon from the well-known Secretary of the
Society for Colonial and Continental Churches.
At least every traveller, if not every home-stayed
Englishman, ought to support this Association,
because it many times supplies just that food and
rest which the soul needs so much on a Sunday
abroad, when the pleasures of foreign travel are
apt to make us think and act as if only the mind
and body constitute the man.

I determined
to paddle from Lucerne by the
river Reuss, which flows out of the lake and
through the town. The river is one of four--the
Rhine, Rhone, Reuss, and Ticino, which all rise
near together in the neighbourhood of the St.
Gothard; and yet, while one flows into the German
ocean, another falls into the Mediterranean, both
having first made between them nearly the
compass of Switzerland. The walking tourist comes
often upon the rapid Reuss as it staggers and
tumbles among the Swiss mountains. To me it
had a special interest, for I once ascended the
Galenhorn over the glaciers it starts from, and
with only a useless guide, who lost his head and
then lost his way, and then lost his temper and
began to cry. We groped about in a fog until
snow began to fall, and the snowstorm lasted
for six hours--a weary time spent by us hapless
ones wandering in the dark and without food.
At length we were discovered by some people sent
out with lights to search for the benighted
pleasure-seeker.

The Reuss
has many cascades and torrent
gorges as it runs among the shattered crags, and
it falls nearly 6000 feet before it reaches the
Lake of Lucerne, this lake itself being still 1400
feet above the sea.

A gradual
current towards the end of the lake
entices you under the bridge where the river starts
again on its course, at first gently enough, and
as if it never could get fierce and hoarse-voiced
when it has taken you miles away into the woods
and can deal with you all alone. The map showed
the Reuss flowing into the Aar, but I could learn
nothing more about either of these rivers, except
that an intelligent man said, "The Reuss is a
mere torrent," while another recounted how a man
some years ago went on the Aar in a boat, and
was taken up by the police and punished for thus
perilling his life. Deducting from these
statements the usual 50 per cent. for exaggeration,
everything appeared satisfactory, so I yielded my
boat to the current, and, at parting, waved my
yellow paddle to certain fair English friends who
had honoured me with their smiles, and who were
now assembled on the bridge. After this a few
judicious strokes took the Rob Roy through the
town and past the pleasant environs, and we were
now again in happy sport on running water.

The current,
after a quiet beginning, soon put
on a sort of "business air," as if it did not mean
to dally, and rapidly got into quick time,
threading a devious course among the woods, hayfields,
and vineyards, and it seemed not to murmur as
streams generally do, but to sing with buoyant
exhilaration in the fresh brightness of the morn.
It certainly was a change, from the sluggish
feeling of dead water in the lakes to the lively
tremulous thrilling of a rapid river like the Reuss,
which, in many places, is as wide as the Rhine
at Schaffhausen. It is a wild stream, too fast
for navigation, and therefore the villages are not
built on the banks, and there are no boats, and
the lonely, pathless, forest-covered banks are
sometimes bleak enough when seen from the water.

For some
miles it was easy travelling, the water
being seldom less than two feet deep, and with
rocks really visible by the eddy bubbling about
them, because they were sharp and jagged. It
is the long smooth and round-topped rock which
is most treacherous in a fast river, for the spray
which the current throws round such a rock is
often not different from an ordinary wave. Now
and then the stream was so swift that I was
afraid of losing my straw hat, simply from the
breeze created by great speed--for it was a day
without wind.

It cannot
be concealed that continuous physical
enjoyment such as this tour presented is a
dangerous luxury if it be not properly used. In hours
of charming brightness my mind sometimes turned
back to work-day life and daily duty. When I
thought of the hospitals of London, of the herds
of squalid poor in foetid alleys, of the pale-faced
ragged boys, and the vice, sadness, pain; and
poverty we are sent to do battle with if we be
Christian soldiers, I could not help asking, "Am
I right in thus enjoying such comfort, such
scenery, such health?" Certainly not right,
unless to get vigour of thought and hand, and
freshened energy of mind, and larger thankfulness
and wider love, and so, with all the powers
recruited, to enter the field again more eager and
able to be useful.
[footnote 1]

In the
more lonely parts of the Reuss the trees
were in dense thickets to the water's edge, and
the wild ducks fluttered out from them with a
splash, and some larger birds like bustards hovered
about the canoe. I think among the flying
companions there was also the bunting, or "ammer"
(from which German word comes our English
"yellow hammer") wood-pigeon, and very
beautiful hawks. The herons and kingfishers were
here as well, but not so many of them as on the
Danube.

Nothing particular
occurred, although it was
a pleasant morning's work, until we got through
the bridge at Imyl, where an inn was high up
on the bank. The ostler helped me to carry the
boat into the stable, and the landlady, knowing
that her customer would never come again,
audaciously charged me 4s. 6d.
for my first dinner, for
mine was a greedy crew and always had two
dinners on full working days.

The navigation
after this began to be more
interesting, with gravel banks and big stones to
avoid, and the channel to be chosen from among
several, and the wire ropes of the ferries stretched
tightly across the river requiring to be noticed
with proper respect. You may have observed
how difficult it is sometimes to see a rope when it
is stretched tight and horizontal, or at any rate
how hard it is to judge correctly of its distance
from your eye. This can be well noticed in
walking by the sea-shore among fishing-boats moored
on the beach, when you will sometimes even knock
your nose against a taut hawser before you are
aware that it is so close.

This is
caused by the fact that the mind
estimates the distance of an object partly by
comparing the two views of its surface obtained
by the two eyes respectively, and which views
are not quite the same, but differ, just as the two
pictures prepared for the stereoscope. Each eye
sees a little round one side of the object, and the
solid look of the object and its distance are thus
before the mind. Now when the rope is
horizontal the eyes do not see round the two sides in
this manner, though if the head is leant sideways
it will be found that the illusion referred to no
longer operates.

Nor is
it out of place to inquire thus at length
into this matter, for one or two blunt slaps on the
head from these ropes across a river make it at
least interesting if not pleasant to examine "the
reason why." And now we have got the
philosophy of the thing, we may let go the ropes.

The actual
number of miles in a day's work for
the canoeist is much influenced by the number of
waterfalls or artificial barriers which are too dry
or too high to allow the canoe to float over them.

In all
such cases, I had to get out and to drag
the boat round by the fields, or to lower her
carefully among the rocks, as is shown in the
sketch on page 125 [above], which represents the usual
appearance of that operation. Although this sort
of work was a change of posture, and brought
into play new muscular action, yet the strain
sometimes put on the limbs by the weight of the
boat, and the great caution required where there
was only slippery footing, made these barriers to
be regarded on the whole as bores. Full soon
however we were to forget such trifling troubles,
for more serious work impended.

The river
banks suddenly assumed a new
character. They were steep and high, and their
height increased as we advanced between the two
upright walls of stratified gravel and boulders.

A full
body of water ran here, the current being
of only ordinary force at its edges, where it was
interrupted by rocks, stones, and shingle, and
was thus twisted into eddies innumerable. To
avoid these entanglements at the sides, it seemed
best, on the whole, to keep the boat in
mid-channel, though the breakers were far more
dangerous there, in the full force of the stream. I
began to think that this must be the "hard
place" coming, which a wise man farther up the
river had warned me was quite too much for so
small a boat, unless in flood times, when fewer
rocks would be in the way. My reply to this was
that when we got near such a place I would pull
out my boat and drag it along the bank. "Ah!
but the banks are a hundred feet high," he said.
So I had mentally resolved (but entirely forgot)
to stop in good time and to clamber up the
banks and investigate matters ahead before going
into an unknown run of broken water.

Such plans
are very well in theory, but
somehow the approach to these rapids was so gradual,
and the mind was so much occupied in overcoming
the particular difficulty of each moment that no
opportunity occurred for rest or reflection. The
dull heavy roar round the corner got louder as the
Rob Roy neared the great bend. For here the
river makes a turn round the whole of a letter S,
in fact very nearly in a complete figure of 8, and
in wheeling thus it glides over a sloping ledge of
flat rocks, spread obliquely athwart the stream for
a hundred feet on either hand, and just a few
inches below the surface.

The canoe
was swept over this singular place
by the current, its keel and sides grinding and
bumping on the stones, and sliding on the soft
moss, which here made the rock so slippery and
black. The progress was aided by sundry pushes
and jerks of mine at proper times, but we
advanced altogether in a clumsy, helpless style,
until at length there came in sight the great white
ridge of tossing foam where the din was great, and
a sense of excitement and confusion filled the mind.

I was
quite conscious that the sight before me
was made to look worse because of the noise
around, and by the feeling of the loneliness and
powerlessness of a puny man struggling in a
waste of breakers, where to strike on a single
one was sure to upset the boat. Here, too, it
would evidently be difficult to save the canoe by
swimming alongside if she capsized or foundered,
and yet it was utterly impossible now to stop.

Right in
front, and in the middle, I saw the
well-known wave which is always raised when a
main stream converges, as it rushes down a narrow
neck. The depression or trough of this was about
four feet below, and the crest two feet above the
level, so the height of the wave was about six
feet. Though tall it was thin and sharp-featured,
and always stationary in position, while the water
composing it was going at a tremendous pace
After this wave there was another smaller one, as
frequently happens.

It was
not the height of the wave that gave
any concern; had it been at sea the boat would
rise over any lofty billow, but here the wave
stood still, and the canoe was to be impelled
against it with all the force of a mighty stream,
and so it must go through the body of water, for
it could not have time to rise. And then the
question remained, "What is behind that wave?"
for if a rock is there then this is the last hour of
the Rob Roy.
[footnote 2]

The boat
plunged headlong into the shining
mound of water as I clenched my teeth and
clutched my paddle. We saw her sharp prow
deeply buried, and then my eyes were shut in
voluntarily, and before she could rise the mass
of solid water struck me with a heavy blow full
in the breast, closing round my neck as if cold
hands gripped me, and quite taking away my
breath.

Vivid thoughts
coursed through the brain in
this exciting moment, but another slap from the
lesser wave, and a whirling round in the eddy
below, soon told that the battle was over, and the
little Rob Roy slowly rose from under a load of
water, which still covered my wrists, and then,
trembling, as if stunned by the heavy shock, she
staggered to the shore. The river too had done
its worst, and it seemed now to draw off from
hindering us, and so I clung to a rock to rest for some
minutes, panting with a tired thrilling of
nervousness and gladness strangely mingled.

Although the
weight of the water had been so
heavy on my body and legs, very little of it had
got inside under the waterproof covering, for
the whole affair was done in a few seconds,
and though everything in front was completely
drenched up to my necktie, the back of my coat
was scarcely wet. Most fortunately I had
removed the flag from its usual place about an hour
before, and thus it was preserved from being
swept away.

Well, now
it is over, and we are rested, and
can begin again with a fresh start; for there is
still some work to do in threading among the
breakers. The main point, however, has been
passed, and the difficulties after it look small,
though at other times perhaps they might receive
attention. Here is our resting-place, the old
Roman town of Bremgarten, which is built in a
hollow of this very remarkable serpent bend of
the rapid Reuss. The houses are stuck on the
rocks, and abut on the river itself, and as the
stream bore me past these I clung to the doorstep
of a washerwoman's house, and pulled my boat
out of the water into her very kitchen, to the
great amusement and surprise of the worthy lady,
who wondered still more when I hauled the canoe
again through the other side of her room until it
fairly came out to the street behind!

It must
have astonished the people to see a
canoe thus suddenly appearing on their quiet
pavement. They soon crowded round and bore
her to the hotel, which was a moderately bad one.
Next morning the bill was twelve francs, nearly
double its proper amount; and thus we
encountered in one day the only two extortionate
innkeepers met with at all, and even at this
second one I made the landlord take eight francs
as a compromise.

This quaint
old Bremgarten, with high walls
and a foss, and antiquities, was well worth the
inspection of my early morning walk next day,
and then the Rob Roy was ordered to the door.

______

[footnote 1]:
The crew of the canoe gave eighty-five lectures upon
the "Rob Roy on the Jordan," and forty-three lectures
on "Underground Adventures," &c--the whole profits
of which, amounting to L10,200 (in January, 1879), were
paid to schools, hospitals, churches, asylums, and other
institutions in England.

[footnote 2]:
I had not then acquired the knowledge of a valuable
fact, that a sharp wave of this kind never has a rock
behind it. A sharp wave requires free water at its rear,
and it is therefore in the safest part of the river so far as
concealed dangers are concerned. This at least was the
conclusion come to after frequent observations afterwards
of many such places.

A faithful
representation of the incident on the Reuss,
so far as concerns the water, is given in
the Frontispiece.
In higher flood the river would be faster but smoother, in
lower times it would be slower and broken into pools.